Out of Europe

Ha, I bet you didn't think I'd ever take off. But living in Gent, some of the neighbouring streets always reminded me of my ultimate goal: The Zebrastraat, Tijgerstraat, Olifantstraat or the Leeuw (Lion) straat were in my mind a lot. With the final vaccination out of the way I will be heading to Tanzania on November 6. Some more final preparations need to be done, but mostly I am enjoying the time off after a busy summer. Running through the Black Forest is my favourite activity right now. The leaves are changing colours and with the weather being very nice it makes for nice jogging.

I opted for a night flight, so I'll get to my destination early in the morning. It does look like my accommodation is somewhat taken care of, but I'll find out more when I get to Moshi.

When I am at my parents' place I tend to re-read some of my old books. This time it was "Earth in Balance" which I read in 1992 when it first came out. I am only 1/3 into it and won't re-finish it, but it reminded me why the book influenced me a lot on how I live my life. Good read.

At any rate, I am excited to get going and I hope I can update the blog frequently. Since COMPACT moved offices I am now in the bigger town of Moshi, which should make internet access easier. As ling as there is electricity, which I understand is not the case 24/7. I am sure I'll encounter more things we take for granted that others have to fight for.

Well, laters then. My flight leaves at 20:45 tomorrow, Tuesday Nov 6. I will get to the airport via train. Phew, thank goodness the strike of the train engineers is on hold for now.

Gentsefest pictures

what is a blog?

Merriam Webster: a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer

Thank goodness it doesn't say anything about the frequency of updates necessary to make it a blog.

But since I am already typing stories all day I'd have to type about typing stories and that just doesn't seem right.

So I'll be not updating this anymore until Africa trip, although I will try to upload some of the Gent pix sometime in the next week or two. The Tour takes every bit of energy out of the riders, but it doesn't fare much better on us "journalists" (I'll have to put this into quotes as merely thinking in these terms seems rather silly for me -I think right now I see myself as not really employed. Just having fun.)

Anyway, here is what I have been doing last week, to get together a story on the Tour coming to my new hometown:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2007/tour07/?id=/features/2007/tour_gent_07

Belgian Refreshments

and with that I do not mean the rain that has been coming down the last couple of days, along with some hail.

After spending a couple of weeks here I realize a refreshing part is that nobody cares that I am riding a bike. I don't get constantly asked about riding my bike everywhere because everybody else is, too. It's just a normal part of life and that's cool.

I really don't have much to say right now anyway, as I was mostly just working a lot, interrupted only by a brief trip to Germany to get some stuff from my parents' house.

I have done a couple of live reports from races now, which was fun. All I need now is a secretary who can type faster than I.

The town is getting ready for the Tour de France (stage 2 will have a stage finish here). It's fun to see all the decorations.

Well, I didn't update the blog in two weeks and I don't have that much right now. Oh, I did a buy a bike. I hope that by next week I can add some more pictures.

no more time

The new job has been overwhelming so far, but also fun. As a consequence of typing all day, though, the blog will suffer a bit. Of course, right now there isn't much going on that is worth reporting. Due to the nature of bike races (they finish around 4-5:30pm local time) work tends to run into the evening, especially on a busy day like yesterday, with multiple races going on simultaneously. Best preparation for what is to come soon. 30 more days (actually 29 as of today) until the Tour hits Gent.






The bicycle there is not a piece of junk that somebody just left. It's really a piece of junk that I inherited with the apartment. Maybe at some point I can get better bike. I actually have my folder with me, but the safest place is upstairs in the apartment, and taking it down through that narrow staircase is nearly impossible. I could fold it and use the elevator, but honestly: Who would use an elevator for two flights of stairs? Maybe I can throw it down the window and try to be quick enough to catch it. But coming home wouldn't be fun - however, it is somehow what people did when they moved in. Not that they threw their furniture up, but they did bring them through the window.

For those who didn't know, Gent is a city. A city that pretends to be rural:




And of course Gent is the city of bicycles. I don't have time to go into details
right now, but will post some thoughts on it later. In the mean time, check out the Gent train station - the secondary parking lot...

The other neat part about the train station is that it's very international, with direct street car service to Russia :)

Ok, that's it for now. Back to work.

Troubled Waters

What looks like "troubled apple" is actually apple juice.
My day yesterday was a bit crazy and I am afraid I won't have much time to write. Since pix say more than a thousand words, I will save myself some time. Today I will at least save 3,000 words. Yesterday, I was doing about one fourth of what I am supposed to do in more than 8 hours. I am sure it'll be a fun job! I did get to have dinner at a nice Italian restaurant ("La Dolce Vita") and also go to the grocery store. After all, when I arrived, all that was in the fridge was that:



Also, here is my new work place. The poster on the left is for the Tour de France. The one on the right is the course of the Tour of Flanders, one of the main races in Belgium:

The gent arrives in Gent...

After some delay due to illness I made it to Gent today. The train ride started early (6:30am). My brother managed to get home in time from his night out to see me off. With 4 train changes I had to make darn sure that I wouldn’t sleep on any leg or I’d probably wake up somewhere completely removed from my desired destination. The ride to Frankfurt had no surprises - I had done this leg many times when getting to the Frankfurt Airport for my flights out to the States. They offer a new service: The “we make sure you don’t think this is a plane” service. So after we left the airport station staff came through asking if anybody was a Lufthansa passenger…Well, either they wanted to make sure that people really didn’t think Lufthansa is flying low these days or they wanted to remind people that the airport *was* their stop - in which case I would think the service is somewhat useless…

Anyway, after some more changes, always carrying my backpack with most of my belongings, a daypack with two laptops and a not particularly cooperating box with my bicycle I finally arrived In Bruxelles-Midi. That was a confusing station, because the Flemish and German announcement called it Brussel-South, the French called it Bruxelles-Midi and the English just plain Brussels. So I made sure that it was really Midi, before setting foot on the platform. Midi means noon and all I can figure is that there is some kind of connection between the sun in the south at noon…But I don’t think they should have overtired train passengers make those kinda decisions after traveling for 6 hours…

I then had to master the final leg, from Brussels to Gent. Easy enough, train leaves at 1:06pm and gets to Gent at 1:33pm. As I get to the platform I notice there is another train to Gent at 1pm. So why not take it? After all it’s an Interregional train - surely doesn’t stop more often than an Intercity, right? Yeah, right….So instead of 1:33 I get to Gent at 1:50. Oh well.

The walk to the apartment is easy and nice. Partially through a park. I come to a cave like entrance that is overgrown and looks like a jungle. And noises that suggest the same. As I walk through, I notice that yes, the noises came from some wild tropical animals: a few roosters are chasing each other, while htree ducklings cross the path with mama right behind.

One of my new teammates greets me in the apartment. The staircase is so narrow that I actually need to fold my folding bike in order to get up. The box and the backpacks I send with the elevator. One bad step and you certainly can’t fall down here: The stairs are so narrow that you surely will get your shoulders stuck, even if your first name isn’t Arnold…

The apartment is nice, and really bright: The living room front side is nothing but window. There is a major street, so the window will have to be closed most of the time, but at least there is a balcony at the back.

Yes, I think I will like it here :)